On July 24, 2024, the parents of a stillborn baby girl filed a complaint in the Circuit Court of the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County, Florida, against the OBGYNs involved with the labor, delivery, and birth.
The Florida medical malpractice lawsuit reportedly alleges that the plaintiffs endured the long and painful process of IVF that finally resulted in the successful conception of a baby girl in June 2022. The pregnancy proceed without complications until an ultrasound that was performed on March 3, 2023 that was initially reported as reassuring. However, three days later, on March 6, 2023, one of the defendant OBs allegedly noted recurrent variable decelerations in the baby’s heart rate but did not take immediate action despite the labor nurses considering the situation to be concerning.
The birth injury medical malpractice lawsuit alleges that from about midnight until the early morning on March 6, 2023, the baby was in distress as evidenced by prolonged decelerations in her heart rate and a shift in her heart rate patterns, but the defendant OB delayed ordering a C-section.
The Florida stillbirth medical malpractice lawsuit reportedly alleges that another defendant OB from the same medical practice took over the care of the mother-to-be and the baby at 7 a.m. on March 6, 2023, but he also failed to appreciate and act on the fetal heart tracing that indicated that the baby was in severe distress, which required an urgent C-section delivery. It was not until 8:47 a.m. that the defendant OB ordered a C-section. The delivery was completed at 9 a.m. but the baby girl was limp and unresponsive with meconium stained amniotic fluid. Resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful and the cause of death was determined to be a cord accident complicated by meconium aspiration syndrome.
The plaintiffs’ lawsuit alleges that earlier intervention would have prevented the stillbirth of their daughter and that they both suffered severe emotional distress as a result.
Stillbirth affects about 1 in 175 births, and each year about 21,000 babies are stillborn in the United States. That is about the same as the number of babies that die during the first year of life.
Stillbirth occurs in families of all races, ethnicities, and income levels, and to women of all ages. However, stillbirths do occur more often to women in certain racial or ethnic groups. In 2021, stillbirth occurred among non-Hispanic Black women two times more often than non-Hispanic Asian or Pacific Islander and White women.
If you or your baby suffered a birth injury (or worse) during labor, delivery, or shortly after birth in Florida or in another U.S. state, you should promptly find a Florida birth injury lawyer, or a birth injury lawyer in your state, who may investigate your birth injury claim for you and represent you and your child in a birth injury medical malpractice case, if appropriate.
Click on the “Contact Us Now” tab to the right, visit our website, or call us toll-free in the United States at 800-295-3959 to find birth injury attorneys in your state who may assist you.
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